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Monday, November 19, 2012

Alliance for Education Strategic Plan

"On a mission to ensure every child in Seattle Public Schools is prepared for success in college, career and life."

That's what is says at the top of the Alliance for Education home page. With that mission, the Alliance has no business with anything outside Seattle Public Schools. This includes private schools, schools in other districts, and, of course, any charter schools should they appear.

That mission statement is repeated on the web page for their Strategic Plan. C'mon. You had to know that they would have a strategic plan, didn't you? I suggest you read it. It is an illuminating document. This tells what the Alliance sees when it looks at itself in the mirror. It may be a different vision of what you and I see when we look at the Alliance.
The Alliance includes, among their internal strengths: "Convener of disparate voices" Yeah. Seriously. That reminds me of the claim by the woman in Bob's Country Bunker in the movie, The Blues Brothers, when she tells Elwood that they usually have bands that play both kinds of music, Country and Western. The Alliance convenes disparate voices - Education Reform Organizations funded by the Gates Foundation and Education Reform Organizations funded by the Broad Foundation.

Among their internal weaknesses they count: "Overly identified with business (positive/negative)" So it's a weakness and a strength.

Here, also, we find the fundamental flaw in all of the Alliance's work:

Of the many levers to pull in pursuit of improved educational opportunities for children, we will focus on three. Our organizational theory of action is that leadership, teacher effectiveness and establishing a college-bound culture are the three highest-leverage investments we can make to affect systemic change in Seattle Public Schools.

And what in the world has directed them to make these three areas of work the focus of their effort? Is there any credible evidence anywhere that these three points are the most critical? I don't think so. I cannot be the only one who notices that none of these three things speak to the work of actually teaching students.

And how are they going about this work? You'll be astonished. It's with "evidence based decision-making and inclusive community partnerships". Yep. The two things that would, I should think, draw them away from these areas of focus. There is no evidence to support this work, and the Alliance never comes anywhere near the community - the real community. They spend all of their time with the community that attends their Black and Orange Ball.

Honestly, the rest of the strategic plan is equally filled with unintentional humor. Such as:

Really. No kidding. That's how they are going to crystallize their brand identity? By changing their logo?

Here's a line from their self-description of their community engagement role:

It is important to note here the profile of the Alliance as a “grasstops” convener of community leaders as opposed to a grassroots organizer of community members.

I love that. They will engage the community, but only select members. That is, in fact, how I view them as well, so we're in agreement on that.

Here's another funny line. Regarding their work as fiscal agent for various school groups, they write:

"The services are provided at no cost to the groups or individual schools."

This is, in fact, false. The Alliance takes the interest earned on the money. That's a cost to the groups and the schools. The reason that the Alliance had to increase the cap on their direct compensation from the District from 5% to 7.5% this past year was because they were not earning as much in interest since rates have fallen.

Be sure to check out their financials - what role this report has in a strategic plan I can't say - but it does make it abundantly clear that the Alliance gets nearly all of its funding from the Gates Foundation. In particular, the grants that support their three primary focus efforts. The Nesholm Family Foundation, for example, provides a significant grant of $493,768, but it's for literacy in middle schools - not an Alliance focus cuz, y'know, it's about actually teaching students.

There are thousands of consulting firms across the country that are great at convincing organizations/comapnies that all they need to do to increase business, gain credibility, or otherwise achieve their goals is to change the logo/branding. The consulting firms and their associates make a LOT of money—usually with very little result. Logos count when the product is consumer-oriented: Apple, Nike, Microsoft—not so much for non-profits.

Oh for pete's sake, it's just a business plan and like such well thought out MBA piffel, err... plan, it presents A4E as a catayst, a convener, and a conduit.

From their website, you find things like:

Under the section on SWOT (for stengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Threats section has "tenuous relationship with labor" listed.)

-- "EMT" as in "Excecutive Mangement Team" (vs. the kind that saves you when you have a heart attack. I know which one I want to keep.) --" 'new alchemy' of community partnerships" --"statewide actors looking to Seattle as example"

Thank you, AAK IKR?, for highlighting some of the goopier language in this piece. There are more.

It's easy to get distracted by the purple prose, the inaction verbs, the passive voice, the stalking elitism, and the delusional self-perception. I tried to focus on what they really think they're doing, and it troubled me.

They make no pretention about being, well, prententious. "grasstops"! Where in the world did they get that word? They know that they are not getting any community support and they are totally okay with that. They are not interested in retail. They only want to interact with community leaders, not community members.

The real problem with the Alliance is that they looked at Seattle Public Schools and decided that what was really needed to help the students succeed was leadership classes for the Board. That is so disturbing. That stinks so badly of the hubris of executives who think that it is they who create the value in a company when they don't actually produce any goods or provide any services.

They want to close the opportunity gap by establishing a college bound culture. That's all it takes? Just put up some college pennants in the lunchroom and the gap gets closed? Who are these people and who is informing them?

The Alliance functions as the mafia. They started out playing the protector and now they own the district's soul.

If Banda has any integrity at all, he will cease doing business with this group ASAP. If he continues to play the CYA/survival game with them (deluding himself that he's just keeping his enemies closer rather than being the sellout he's being), he'll lose--because they started undermining him before he arrived.

If the union membership has any brain cells left, getting the district to cut ties with this racket with be agenda item number one during the next contract talks.

I do so tire of the slickness TFA requires to embed itself like a parasite. I do not mean the individual teachers, rather the org and its paid staffers. If UTR takes hold and displaces TFA (Stritikus' supplications notwithstanding), it will be worth it!!!!

What comes through in these email chains is a set of "usual suspects" who are brought together to represent Education Reform Organizations on any issue (TFA, CAS, CBA, etc.). They are the self-appointed "leaders" without any followers: Chris Korsmo, Tom Stritikus, Holly Miller, Sara Morris, etc. They re-group to discuss each new topic, but it's the same group each time.

Funny how the Board can quickly begin to kvetch about hearing from the same group of people some of the time but not complain about hearing from the same group of people the rest of the time.

Damn straight, it sounded imperious. It WAS imperious. When somebody thinks they have "paid" for you, they expect you to jump when they say "jump." What do people think money is for, if not to buy power and results? What, what? You say you thought it was "philanthropy?" . . ."charitable giving?"

Education Acroynms

Advanced Learning - SPS' three-tier program for advanced learners. Made up of APP, Spectrum and ALOs. (Note: the name of the district program is "Advanced Learning Services and Programs" but these three programs fall under "Highly Capable Services" of AL Services and Programs.

ALO - Advanced Learning Opportunity, the third tier of SPS' Advanced Learning program

AP - Advanced Placement. A national program of college-level classes given in high schools.

APP - Accelerated Progress Program. One of the levels of the Advanced Learning Program. NOTE: the name of this program is now "HIGHLY CAPABLE COHORT." This change occurred in 2014.

ASB - Associated Student Body. High school leadership groups.

AYP - Adequate Yearly Progress. Part of NCLB.

BEX - Building Excellence. SPS' capital renovation/rebuilding program that is funded via the BEX levy. Every 3 years there is the Operations levy and either the BEX or BTA levies as those two levies rotate in six year cycles).

BLT - Building Leadership Team. Staff members at a school who meet regularly to discuss building issues.

BTA - Buildings, Technology, Academics. The major maintenance/other capital fund for SPS. Originally BTA was to cover major maintenance like HVAC (heating, ventilation, air conditioning), roofs, waterlines, etc.) but now covers wide swaths of items like athletic fields, technology and funding academic needs.

CAICEE - Community Advisory Committee for Investing in Educational Excellence. Created by former Superintendent Manhas in 2008, to issue a report about reform recommendations for SPS.

CSIP - Continuous School Improvement Plan, the plan for improvement for each school as required by state law.

EOC - End of Course Assessments, given in math and science, required for high school graduationESEA - Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the federal law that governs education, includes the NCLB accountability provisions.

e-STEM or e-STEAM - STEM or STEAM curriculum with an environmental focus.

FACMAC - Facilities and Capacity Management Advisory Committee. A district committee comprises of an all-volunteer citizen group created in 2012 to help bring research and ideas to capacity management issues in the district.

FERPA - Family Education Rights and Privacy Act. A federal law that protects students' privacy

FRL - Free and reduced lunch.

FTE - Full Time Equivalent

FY - Fiscal Year

Highly Capable Services - NEW name (as of 2014) as umbrella name for these programs: Highly Capable Cohort (formerly APP), Spectrum and ALO (Advanced Learning Opportunities).

HSPE - High School Proficiency Exam, state assessment that replaced the WASL for 10th graders, required for graduation

HQT - Highly Qualified Teacher, a standard set by federal law

IA - Instructional Assistant

IB - International Baccalaureate program. An international program of advanced classes that can either be taken as stand alone or as part of an overall IB program.

IDEA - Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The federal law that governs special education

MAP - Measures of Academic Progress. A computer-based adaptive assessment made by NWEA and originally purchased by the district for use as a district-wide formative assessment but now used for a wide variety of purposes.

MSP - Measurement of Student Progress, the state proficiency assessment that replaced the WASL for students in grades 1-8

MTSS - Multi-Tiered Systems of Support

NCLB - No Child Left Behind, a provision of the federal education law, ESEA, introduced during the George W. Bush administration